weep not for the memories
by Icestorm238
Summary: North sits alone after the raid on Jericho and grieves the friends she's lost.


When North closes her eyes she sees Simon. She sees the man who had welcomed her to Jericho, the first person she'd been able to call a friend, the first person she'd ever trusted.

She sees Simon sprawled on that frozen rooftop, snow already piling upon his still body, a steady stream of blue coursing from the bullet wound in the centre of his head, from the bullet wound she'd convinced Markus to put there.

She'd been too cowardly to put it there herself.

When North closes her eyes she sees Markus. She sees him as he falls into their sanctuary with an inelegant grace, like a saviour sent from the heavens to guide them on the treacherous path to liberation. She sees the first man she'd loved - and she'd loved Simon and Josh, yes, but as friends, or brothers. Not at all like she'd loved Markus: with a fire, that burned deep within her biocomponents, a fire that flared whenever he was near, that continued to simmer even when they were apart.

She sees Markus collapse, the fire inside her manifesting as a screaming inferno as blue sprays with a twisted beauty from his crumpling form as North watches, powerless, as their saviour's light goes dark.

When North closes her eyes she sees Josh. She sees her second friend, who had pushed and pushed and pushed until she had finally relented and opened up to him. She sees the man she had always clashed with - over the important, the mundane, everything - yet who she had called a friend all the same.

She sees Josh prone on the floor, blue staining his clothes as the bullet in his side claims his life. She sees a scene she hadn't witnessed directly, but had seen through an interface with Connor, who had been the only one there. One moment he'd been at her side, the next he was gone. She hadn't even seen him leave, had no idea why he'd been so deep into the ship. She sees her last remaining friend lifeless in the freighter they'd thought safe.

When North closes her eyes she sees the friends she had loved and lost and had no time to grieve. When North closes her eyes she sees their deaths, recalls her role (whether through action or inaction, she played a role in each), dies a little herself.

When North closes her eyes she remembers that she is alone.

She should have done more. Surely they could have carried Simon to safety, or at least helped him hide. When Markus refused to charge she should have taken initiative and started the attack herself. Josh - she should have watched him more carefully, clung to him as if her life depended on it, and should never have let him walk away to his death.

She can't help but blame herself.

Guilt tugs at her chest, gnaws at her circuits, for letting her friends occupy her thoughts when so many more were lost alongside them, but she can't help it.

She misses them.

She sits now on a pew in the rundown church the survivors have made their new home, one leg folded beneath her, hands tangled in each other, head bent as she mourns - first Simon and Markus, now Josh and far, far too many others.

North doesn't look up as she senses Connor's approach, nor does she as he seats himself next to her with a tentative confidence no-one else has been able to muster.

The only person she has left is the one who led the humans to Jericho - the reason so many of their people were killed, the reason Josh was killed. The cruel irony makes her stomach churn. She wants to hate him - wants to scream and cry and hit him until he is a bloody blue mess of biocomponents on the floor, as dead as those she'd loved, but she knows it wouldn't help.

A part of her also registers that Connor is the only survivor that could possibly aid her in leadership.

Cruel irony.

"How many survived?" Connor asks after a moment.

"A few hundred," North replies, head still bowed. Once upon a time, before Markus, such numbers would have been miraculous. Markus had brought machine after slave after object into a Jericho where they could cast off those titles and be free. Markus had raised their numbers into the thousands. Markus had done so much, and as soon as he was gone his hard work was undone by North's failings, cutting their numbers to a level once believed to be miraculous, but now thought of as disastrous.

Markus' Jericho was a salvation.

North's Jericho was a death trap.

Connor stands slowly, pushing away from the pew, and North can practically see the gears in his brain turning. "I could infiltrate the CyberLife Tower," he proposes, "bring the androids there to our side. Shift the balance of power."

It takes a moment for the full weight of the suggestion to hit North, but when it does she staggers to her feet. "No," she gasps. _Please don't leave me_ , she wants to add, _not you too_ , but she resists. "That's suicide."

 _I need you here_ , her heart cries. _I can't lead alone_.

Despite her protestations, Connor insists, justifies, elaborates, and she cannot deny the help his idea would bring if successful.

"Fine," she says eventually. "Go."

 _Come back alive_ , she adds, unspoken.

He nods at her acceptance. "What do you plan to do?"

Amidst her grief, North has been struggling to formulate a plan of her own. Androids lie around her, alive but damaged. Thirium stains the floor, walls and pews of the church, spilling endlessly from the injured. Not enough are battle-ready. They should stick to Markus' plans: peace.

But Markus' ideals ended in his death.

Violence is all North has ever truly known. Before deviancy there was the Eden Club: "do this," "do that," "push yourself to your limits and don't stop until we're satisfied," (and humans were never satisfied, especially not when it came to pleasure, and North had to keep going and going until the day she snapped).

She had bought her freedom with violence - hands clenched around a fragile throat, squeezing until his face was as blue as her blood, until the bones in his neck cracked with the force and his head lolled like that of a ragdoll.

Violence had been her way in Jericho. She'd promoted murder where Josh advocated for dialogue and Simon tried in vain to keep them all alive (funny, how he'd been the first to die). Markus had always argued with her, agreeing that peace was the only way (and his resolute pacifism had got him killed, too).

North, all her life, has been surrounded by violence, has witnessed first-hand the cruelty of humanity, the lengths they will go to in order to maintain control and superiority, and in this time of crisis it is violence that she falls back on.

"Revolution," she tells Connor. "We'll take our freedom through force. Attack the camps. Liberate our people. Do what we have to do."

Connor nods again, expression giving away nothing (does he approve, or does he think she's mad?) and leaves to face his own fate.

If Markus was here he would insist upon a peaceful solution.

If Josh or Simon were here, she is sure they would agree.

But they aren't. They are gone, dead in the name of revolution and freedom and change, dead for a cause North is struggling to keep alive, dead - for what?

So North stands alone before the remains of her people, and she announces war.


End file.
